Piss off, thank you

Riding to work this morning, I watched a FedEx driver negotiate a four-way stop in the early morning darkness while holding a clipboard and reading his list of deliveries with a bright interior light over his head, further inhibiting his ability to see what was near his truck.

Then I got to work and had to replace the bulb in my desk lamp. The packaging claims the new bulb will last one year before burning out, at which point (according to the fine print) "Lamp replacement is the sole remedy available."

Shit. I thought I could get a second year out of that bulb by paying a repair shop 20 bucks to fix it.

Some days it seems there are two kinds of people in the world: those who are stupid, and those smart enough to think everyone else is stupid. Watching that dumbass from FedEx made me feel smart enough to compose the following lists during the rest of my morning commute.

Screw you . . .

. . . distracted FedEx guy

. . . teenage punks who yelled at me from the other side of Dimond Boulevard a few nights ago and called me an asshole for the egregious offense of being a cyclist riding riding home from work on a winter evening

. . . all you drivers who are in such a hurry that, even though you see me just off your right front fender as I roll down the bike path or bike lane approaching an intersection, you make your high-speed right turn and cut me off to save yourself three seconds

. . . motorists who pull out of subdivisions without checking for traffic on the bike path that intersects your street every morning and every afternoon of the entire year—and screw you twice for idling your car directly across that path while you put on your makeup, unwrap your breakfast burrito, talk on your cell phone or wait for a break in traffic

. . . every drunk and/or delinquent who enjoys breaking liquor bottles on bike paths—if I weren’t an atheist I would pray for you to spend eternity crawling across broken glass, with occasional, 15-minute breaks spent patching tubes and re-inflating two-inch knobbies to 50 psi with mini-pumps while mosquitoes swarm you

. . . every desperate-for-attention Harley owner who tampers with your exhaust system until it’s loud enough to make my ears bleed as you pass

. . . every short guy who compensates for a small Johnson by driving a big pickup and having an attitude—tall chicks will never dig you, so get over it

Thank you . . .

. . . motorists who, when you see a cyclist approaching, stop your car before crossing the bike path or, better yet, go to the trouble of backing up to let us pass after realizing you’re in the way

. . . Keira Knightly, for reasons stated previously (and a photo so good, it's worth using twice)

. . . every driver who has ever given me a little extra room, a friendly wave, a smile or otherwise shown courtesy instead of malice—you outnumber the jackasses, they just cast a longer shadow

. . . the smokers who often hang out behind my office building and like to hold the door open for the crazy guy from the third floor who rides his bike to work—I don’t understand why you’re killing yourselves with those things, but you’re nice people

. . . the machine-shop worker who stopped shoveling snow one recent morning to smile and say, “You guys are amazing” as you watched me ride past in the dark—you made me feel like an Alaska hard guy instead of a hopeless bike geek (and I was actually OK with the hopeless bike geek thing)